Angels 13
Mets 3
ANAHEIM – Met right-hander Jason Roach made his major-league debut wearing No. 57. That number was last given to purported “mental skills coach” Fran Pirozzolo, and his brief stint was characterized by embarrassment and dubious effectiveness.
Last night, the same could be said for Roach.
The converted minor-league third baseman served up a third-inning grand slam to Brad Fullmer and was whipped for seven runs in the first three frames of a humbling 13-3 loss to Anaheim.
The defeat snapped a three-game winning streak. The last 17 Mets hitters went down in order.
“We weren’t deserving of anything less,” manager Art Howe said. “It was a little embarrassing.”
A wiseguy would say the Mets (30-36) were still getting their Roaches lit up this season. But remarkably, his start wasn’t the lowlight.
Down 7-3 in the fourth, center fielder Jeromy Burnitz misplayed two consecutive sinking liners and should’ve been charged with errors on both of them.
Tim Salmon was given a gift two-run triple, and Garret Anderson was awarded an RBI double.
Both balls seemed to deflect off a charging Burnitz’ glove on replay, and Salmon’s carried all the way to the wall. Burnitz thought only the second ball might’ve glanced off his glove.
“I got a good read, good jumps, got to ’em … and just missed them,” Burnitz said. “I really can’t tell you why.”
A sellout crowd of 43,449 was disappointed the slow-footed Salmon didn’t try for the inside-the-park job, but the Angels probably didn’t want to rub it in at that point.
Met interim GM Jim Duquette wanted to watch five innings before catching a redeye back to New York, but for his sake he hopefully missed Burnitz’ misplays.
The Mets already trailed 3-2 when Roach loaded the bases for Fullmer, who crushed a first-pitch curveball into the first few rows of the right-center seats above an 18-foot fence.
As Fullmer trotted around the bases, Howe looked like he had just sucked a lemon.
“I think they got the gist of my demeanor in the dugout,” Howe said.
Earlier, Garret Anderson had taken Roach deep on a first-inning change-up. Although Roach was naturally excited about the debut, he said, “It’s not really an excuse. I wouldn’t say nerves have too much to do with tonight.”
Duquette and Howe agreed on giving the start to Roach because he was more of a control specialist than Aaron Heilman, who is the Mets’ No. 3 prospect, according to Baseball America.
You can throw Roach’s performance out, because otherwise it’s either a bad miscalculation by the Met brass or an indictment of Heilman’s promise.
Roach said Tom Glavine and Al Leiter spoke to him in the dugout after his night was through and he said, “The bad stuff’s gone. My attitude is, once it happened, it’s over.”
